National Clothesline

The biggest problem with being a consultant is that we are always tempted to say “on one hand you could do it this way and on the other hand you can do it that way.”

I was on a project in San Diego and the client threatened to cut off one of my hands so that I could tell him what to do.

The point of this is that there are some instances in which there is more than one way to accomplish the same goal and I have seen this throughout the industry. However, most of the successful drycleaners who have million-dollar routes stick to what I call the 95/5 rule in which they only tweak five percent of their own stuff to make their delivery service work.

This is where I have to adapt as a coach and usually the differences are due to demographics and your POS system.

My system of managing, marketing and maintaining successful routes is what I apply on all my projects and I have to be somewhat flexible when traveling coast to coast. The differences can be in compensation of the drivers and/sales staff, management duties, marketing strategies and other variables.

The dangerous part is when there are certain bad habits that have been established through the years, which often cause a lack of growth or inefficiencies in your routes. It’s like Superman 3 in which Richard Pryor tried to recreate Kryptonite by adding his own unknown substance. Bad things happen.

The hardest part of being an owner or manager is that you may have been doing routes for so long, you don’t know “what” habits you have established for you and your staff. I sometimes feel like a doctor on projects in which I try to diagnose the cause of limited growth and then perform surgery on your operations; Rob Spiro of Windy City Cleaners calls me Doctor Jim when we talk.

So what is the point of this article? Well, it should open your eyes for self-examination of your delivery system. Try to take a look at it from two other perspectives: what the customer sees and what a true outsider sees.

This is why I get hired so often; I come in with neutral eyes and no emotional attachment to you and your employees. Sometimes the diagnosis hurts, but the truth is what it is — exactly what you may need to take your business to the next level.

I’m not applying for a job or trying to make this an infomercial. But when it comes to starting routes, even if you have been doing it for years, it pays to have an outsider come in and examine your operations.

There are plenty of industry leaders out there who will come to you and assist you in either a productive or constructive way. Methods for Management, Sid Tuchman, Harvey Gershenon and others have “been there, done that,” as well as listening to other remarks from you, the true industry experts.

Every project I go on, I strive to learn something new that I can take back to my current clients as well as previous ones. The biggest key for me, and it should be for you, is to be open to suggestions and corrections that are put in front of you. Once you believe you have done all that can be done, you are done.

The old cliché really applies here: Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

We have all been there at one time in our lives and sometimes you must make a change in order to see the growth you wish to achieve. You always need to take a look at your marketing materials, strategies, incentives and other options when it comes to monitoring your ROI.

As for your staff, find out what motivates them and work on either tweaking their pay or completely making a change. All this is critical in developing million-dollar routes.

Sometimes getting back to the basics is all you need to do. However, what worked before may not work now. This is the dilemma that many of you face.

The bottom line is that many of you are in the same boat, no matter what part of the country you operate in. Many of you struggle with marketing, while others are experiencing limited growth, or no growth at all, in your routes even though you are adding people to your delivery service. For those who have decreased, it is time to make a change since something has gone amiss. Do it now before it becomes too late.

I received more comments from my February article in National Clothesline about commissioned drivers. I want to share with you many of the responses in a condensed form.

First of all, many of you agreed with what I wrote. In fact, Ronn Herrmann, the route manager of Guillani Cleaners in Buffalo, NY, told me that they read it during their route meeting, identifying previous route drivers. Others shared very similar experiences and appreciated the fact that they were not alone in their feeling.

However, a few others shared success stories about straight commissioned drivers and I again attribute this to the 95/5 rule of drycleaning.

One gentleman told me to enter the real world, but he has been in the insurance industry for 35 years.

Either way, paying drivers should always be based on what motivates them the most, and money isn’t always number one.

The bottom line is that I want my routes to be built around customer service, a system with accountability and structure that makes it profitable as well. Thus, whatever marketing you do to get customers you will keep them.

You also must have a strategic back-up plan in case a driver leaves. This includes training and some sort of an insurance plan so that they won’t take your customers with them.